There'll Be Children
by The Divine Comedian
Summary: Monstrous Regiment. Polly, Mal, and the absence of a proper birthday party. Angst angst angst and a few bad jokes. PollyxMal.
1. There'll Be Children

**Disclaimer: **it's all Pratchett's.

**Spoilers**: Monstrous Regiment.

**A/N: **Written for the "birthday: poetry or rhyme" challenge over at the LJ cheesemongers community. Rating for violence and innuendo. Warnings for... violence, innuendo, and blatant shippiness, I suppose.

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**There'll Be Children**

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The first light of the morning, filtered by the barred windows far above, reaches for Polly with clammy fingers, but she's already awake. Whatever false hope there is makes her look up, just for a moment.

In her lap, Mal's head stirs, and her eyes flutter open. "'s it morning already?" she mutters. "Damn." So good at pretending, Mal, it's not as if either of them has slept all night.

"A cunning observation," says Polly. Lets her fingers stroke lightly, lightly through Mal's hair, despite the sarcasm. "My leg's fallen asleep," she adds, because it's true. "Can you move a little?"

"Can try that," says Mal, and Polly slips her hands underneath Mal's shoulders, lifts her up carefully to adjust her position. It doesn't matter that much, because a numb leg is really, really, not the worst of their problems. And then Mal's head is resting on her thigh again and Polly resumes the two-handed stroking. No difference, really.

Mal says something and Polly realises she hasn't listened, on account of being too engrossed in the way the faint light is playing with Mal's hair. She's learned to pay attention to little details. Leave the big picture stuff to the ruperts.

"Sorry?" she says.

"I said, Polly, my dear, woman who has a weird and strangely fascinating hair fetish _don't stop_, that I wish you a very happy birthday," says Mal. "Since we determined it's morning, and all."

"Oh," says Polly. "That."

Her hands are slowly getting as numb as her leg, so she traces the shapes of Mal's face, the curve of her jaw, the dark lines of her brows, as long as she still can. Breath clouds in chilly autumn air, and she wonders if she can lean down and kiss her, just once, or if that's too much sudden movement for Mal, who, despite everything she says, seems to be in quite a lot of pain.

"You remembered," Polly adds.

"'course," says Mal. "Spent four birthdays with you. Although," and there she smiles, even though the smile isn't very happy, or even very sane, "none was quite like this."

Polly exhales sharply. "I noticed."

Mal falls silent at this, and for a moment Polly is convinced Mal's fallen asleep. It'd be a blessing, really, Mal needs the sleep, so much that Polly doesn't even dare waking her from her nightmares when she has them. Even though they feature Polly, every last one of them. Polly knows this; it's turned out that some of Mal's dreams are as contagious as her hallucinations.

"Next year," murmurs Mal, suddenly, "next year there's going to be a party. With confetti. And twenty-five birthdays candles that you can not blow out in one go because, really, you smoke too much, I've always said that. And lots and lots of unnecessary decorations."

"Sounds good," says Polly. She doesn't care about decorations much, but she does care, yes, she does care about next year.

"Copious amounts of alcohol and caffeinated beverages," adds Mal, and her voice acquires a definitely unexpected wistful quality. "And a cake. That I'm going to bake. With my very own two hands oh _damn_ -" and she trails off.

"Shh," says Polly, and her heart breaks a little. "Yes, you will," she says, aiming for reassuring and failing. "It'll be an appalling monstrosity of a cake, since you sort of fail at cooking and other assorted domestic tasks, and I will say I appreciate the thought and maybe lick some cappuccino creme off the top because I'm nice like that, but damn it, I _am_ going to see you in an apron one of these days."

Mal lifts one eyebrow, slowly. "Only an apron, or -?"

"There'll be _children_," says Polly indignantly, but she's slightly thankful that the moment of despair was just that, a moment. "Shufti'll be having her kid - oh - last week, if I'm any judge."

"I'm going to teach them songs with questionable content," says Mal, peering up at her and looking positively impudent. "For your birthday. I'll line the kids up and have them sing for you and Paul and your father will be embarrassed to no end and Shufti'll just stand there with that I am oh so scandalised but not really look that she has perfected. Funny as hell, I think."

"That would be nice," says Polly. "Yes, I'd think I'd like that." Seeing Paul and Shufti and her father again; she'd like that.

"And poetry," Mal says. "I'm going to write a very awful poem for you, because that is practically expected since I am a vampire and all, and then I'll proclaim it at dinner with great heart-felt devotion. On my knees."

"And once again I must remind you there'll be children," says Polly.

Mal pouts. "And people think I am the one with the filthy imagination."

"Can't imagine why," says Polly. "Besides, I once had a very awful poem written for me. By my fifteen year old neighbour. You can't beat male adolescent poetry."

"I'm not sure," says Mal. "My poems reach quite abysmal depths. You need _experience_ and _talent_ to be this bad. Fifteen? I whine in your general direction."

"It starts with, 'Your eyes are as brown as freshly brewed coffee.'"

"See?" says Mal. "Not bad at all."

"He proceeded to rhyme that with 'toffee'," Polly informs her. "And no, I am not going to tell you which part of my anatomy he compared that with."

"Something sticky and... sickeningly sweet?" says Mal. "Boy, is he in for a surprise." She stretches a little. "And while that is quite awful as far as poetry goes, there'll also be rainbow-coloured balloons. Bet your male adolescent doesn't come close to being that cool."

"Rainbow-coloured -," says Polly. "I think you lost me there."

"Balloons," says Mal. "Bit like rubber sonkies, only they're for children and you kind of blow them up, but not in an explosion kind of way, and there's supposed to be some intrinsic satisfaction in that, but I'm sure I do not see why that is."

"I'm convinced that defintion has potential to be very helpful," says Polly, "but what are rubber sonkies?"

"Rubber sonkies, dear child, are -," says Mal, and there Polly strokes her face again, and she leans into that, eyes almost smiling for the first time in days, "- oh, never mind. I doubt you'll find yourself in a position where you'd need those anytime soon."

Polly's hands stop where they are, and Mal closes her almost smiling eyes, but neither can make the sentence unspoken, and that brightly coloured birthday dream crashes onto a dirty cell floor.

"No, I won't," says Polly, flatly. Suddenly, she wants to hurt Mal and she hates herself for it. "Because we're going to die and there's no way out and _we're going to die_, Mal."

"No, we're not," says Mal. Polly's heart skips a beat, and not in a good way, because Mal adds, "You are. You're going to die. I can't."

For a moment, Polly really isn't sure which one is worse. She stares down on her hands, bound together with rope that hasn't given way to gnawing and tearing and isn't going to, either. They're tingling, numbing, and she's a bit afraid there'll be lasting damage, but she's really more afraid there won't be a chance to have the damage last.

She looks down at Mal, who has turned her head away to face the door instead, and if Polly didn't know her better... she leans forward to check. No, not crying, after all.

There might be rules against kicking prisoners in the head, but there really are no rules against chaining them up. Mal has hardly moved these last days, and every time she does and a previously unscarred bit of her wrists comes in contact with the silver, the pain makes her hiss between her teeth and that's really worse than any whimper or scream might be. And Polly doesn't know what to do, so she resumes the playing with Mal's hair, drawing lines on her face, just to keep Mal distracted from the way the skin on her wrists has first reddened, then bubbled, peeled, scarred and dear sweet Nuggan Polly can't look at it.

"How many left?" asks Mal, softly. Her voice is controlled, Polly wonders how she does it. Polly's hands slide down to Mal's neck, her finger push the off-white collar aside, tug at the string underneath, the remains of a necklace. Polly closes her eyes and lets the tips of her fingers do the counting, even though she knows the answer. Doesn't matter, Mal knows it as well.

"Four," she says. Her fingers are on Mal's face again, and Mal breathes deeply, smelling the scent off Polly's fingers, takes the time to softly kiss one of them, but maybe that's only for whatever faint trace of coffee is left there.

"Two days," murmurs Mal, and there isn't really a need to say anything else, so Polly just puts a finger on her lips and they fall silent again.

Polly supposes she should be glad that at least Mal isn't going to kill her on her birthday, but she isn't so sure how to go about that.


	2. No Butterflies Here, Except Maybe One

**Title:** No Butterflies Here, Except Maybe One

**Warnings:** violence, references to torture, angst angst angst

**Note:** I am quite aware that _There'll Be Children_ has been marked complete. But what can I say? I have been, shall we say, persuaded, nay, pestered into writing this. It's meant to be complete now. (We'll see how that one works out.)

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**No Butterflies Here, Except Maybe One**

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It wasn't when Polly fed a shaking Mal the last of the coffee beans that she broke down, even though she thought the time felt quite right.

It wasn't when Mal finally lowered her head to Polly's neck - to bite her - and that was certainly not helped by the fact that this moment had all the marks of finality; the whimper, the whispered apology, the lingering thought of _oh I'm dying_ - it felt as though this was the inevitable result of their time together, and all lines were finally converging.

"Please," Polly'd whispered, "it's going to be all right". Not all right, never all right, and her consent didn't do a thing for her; she was scared like never before in her life. Time, she'd said; they needed more _time_. But for what price? she thought, now, made acutely aware by sharp pain that it was her who was paying, her and not -

- not Mal. "Just go on," Polly added, in a moment of desperate lucidity. It was all so clear to her, then. "Go on and finish, if that's what you want." If that was what Polly wanted. Maybe?

"Oh, fuck you," came the reply, and Polly imagined forming those words in her own mouth, made wet and idle by the blood. They'd stick around for a while.

It wasn't when Mal pulled back after what must have been days, her expression obscured by black hair and the evening's dark shadows, and Polly lifted her hands to hit her, or brush aside the lanky strands. She put them down after a moment. Mal'd never cried before. And Polly couldn't make herself touch her after that, because it was her own blood that stained Mal's lips, that she was licking off now, her face averted; age-old instincts were telling Polly to keep the hell away.

It wasn't when they shaved Polly's head that she broke down, though Polly had rather liked her hair before all of this. So what if Mal had teased her about it, Mal wasn't one who should rightfully be strutting around calling other people vain -

It wasn't when they'd shaved Mal's head, either, it had only made Polly angry, because that hair was hers, to run through her fingers, to tangle and untangle at will. - Or would be, if she could ever bring herself to touch Mal again.

(She wondered, briefly, what that meant. In Borogravia, they gave you a shave before they referred you to in-country prisons. Almost as if they were worried about lice.

They'd never get back then, she thought, ha, almost as if that was still an option.)

It wasn't at that moment just before the last few jet-black strands fell, when Mal looked up to lock eyes with her; a tiny acknowledgment of the brave and heroic plan that they'd come up with in the small hours of the morning. Now, in the daylight, it looked feeble, foolish, and also slightly hysterical, and Polly wanted to say something to stop it in time, only -

Beware of famous last stands, Polly thought, and that was when Mal shook off the hands holding her head in place, ducked away from the razor and got to her feet, turning, blurring, scanning, swiftly kicking one of the guards in the stomach. All in all, it couldn't have taken more than a second until the man lay groaning with pain and, seeing Mal looking at the next one, calculating, every fluid move that of the born predator, Polly felt a little twinge of envy that made her wonder if maybe she wasn't entirely human anymore. She looked down.

It wasn't when Polly listened, unmoving for the moment and watching her own knees, to three guards wrestling Mal to the ground, and then, she imagined, keeping her on the ground, kicking - and their boots sounded so heavy - her bare head, her slender limbs, her burned wrists, shackled in silver.

Mal was so eerily silent through all of this against the busy background of shouts and movement, still resisting, while Polly thought she could hear her bird bones cracking, her breath hissing between her teeth. She'd heal, Polly told herself, Mal'd heal. Had it not been vitally important not to draw attention to herself, Polly should have liked to laugh when the pain in her still sore neck reminded her that it was because of her that the guards weren't dead yet.

Ten seconds, she prayed, and then, five, just five more, and then the noise started to die down and Polly dared looking up.

It had taken some time until the panicking guards finally remembered themselves and where they'd put their stakes that morning. Only when one was produced and pressed against Mal's chest that she stopped kicking out, stopped defending herself and went very very still, and by then Polly was already back on her place, trying to control the inexplicable shaking that had come over her.

How dared they, she thought, how dared they not behave according to plan. Certainly they wouldn't -

"Beg," said one of them, and Mal did. Clever girl.

It shouldn't have worked, all this moving invisibly, silently, slipping whatever big sharp implement presented itself to her into her sleeve, and after it had, inexplicably, worked, she shouldn't have got away with it, but no-one searched her, no-one.

It was when she was back in the cell that she broke down, after they'd taken Mal away from her. It was awkward enough, holding the scissors so she could try and cut her bound hands free; her eyes being all leaky certainly wasn't helping. In the end she'd taken to just rubbing the sharp edge over the coarse material of the rope, over and over again. It took a long time, and yet it was too monotonous to keep her suitably distracted.

It wasn't that big of a break-down, either; more like a butterfly flapping its wings just once. The hurricane'd come later.

Drip. Drip. Polly coughed a little, and it sounded like hollow thunder in the tiny cell, so she stopped. She'd heard they had doctors here.

The rope was thinning, fibre for fibre. Every now and then, Polly paused to stretch her aching fingers, and to listen for the sound of approaching steps in the corridor outside. There were none, and with every second that passed in silence, Polly felt her love draw itself together and shrink until, she thought, there was only one infinitely small point inside her, and after that, nothing. Huh.

She got up, took a carefully measured walk around the cell, sat down again and shook her head experimentally. Still nothing.

If only they hadn't hurt them so much. If only she hadn't been so shamefully glad when it was Mal getting hurt and not herself, and if only she could be sure that Mal didn't feel like that when if was the other way around, that Mal wouldn't at some point be ready to administer any fate to Polly, just to survive herself. As Polly would do.

If only Mal were here.

She could move her hands more freely now; another half hour with the scissors should do it. Funny, she thought, how the last half-hour was the hardest -

In the heavy silence, she heard the foot steps from far away, at least two pairs of hard-soled boots and, a minute later, a third, softer and quite out of sync with the others and also, though that may have been her imagination, rather dragging, or being dragged. Polly lay down on the cold stone floor, the scissors and the sorry remains of the rope underneath her, and her quite un-bound hands so that they couldn't easily be seen from the door. It was all that she could do in the time.

It was much too dark to see anything, she told herself; her pounding heart of course didn't believe her. Certainly they must hear it; certainly Mal did.

Breathe normally, she thought as the door opened, which of course prompted the question of what counted as normal around here. So she just breathed. Nothing out of the ordinary.

A shove, a stagger, the turning of a key; and then silence again, but of course that small moment of mercy had to be broken, and so soon.

"Polly?" whispered Mal.

Polly considered not answering at all, just to pretend no-one was here, because then there wouldn't be a problem -

Wait, she thought. This was just her overexcited brain talking. Still not escaped. "No, I think I'm Nuggan for a while, thanks," she said.

"Oh. Good," said Mal, and when Polly finally turned around to look at her, she saw that Mal had been leaning against the wall - a faint trace of her former elegance amongst all the entropy - and was now slowly easing herself downwards, tucking her feet in, folding her hands neatly so that the silver only touched the already burned parts. Waiting. Polly had expected a bit more impatience.

She could have crawled over, the cell was small enough, but something that resembled human dignity - and in a place like this! - made her get up and walk what little distance there was before she knelt down next to Mal.

"Hands out," she said.

"Jawohl, sarge," murmured Mal, not being very funny at all, but she obeyed, mustering Polly and the implement in her hands. An eyebrow was lifted in appraisal. "Scissors?" she said, but if there was any resentment on her side, any soul-crushing despair, Polly couldn't detect it.

"All I could get," said Polly. "The long swords just wouldn't fit into my sleeve." She narrowed her eyes. The scissors were pretty pointy towards the ends of the blades, and Mal's handcuffs did have locks with keyholes, but still they didn't look as if they belonged together in any way, shape or form.

"Oh, the imagery," she murmured, although that appeared to be Mal's line. It'd be like trying to get through a barred window with a can opener.

"We were at the hairdresser's," said Mal. "You could have nicked a hair pin. It's a classic."

She seemed awfully changed, thought Polly, as she was holding up Mal's cuffed wrist (icy metal, Mal's feverish skin, and the awful stickiness that she was trying to ignore) and poking around in the lock. She thought she could detect the mechanism, sliding, snapping back, doing nothing.

"How come you're so cheerful?" Polly asked after a while, after she'd thought again and again, there!, now she had it -

There was no answer, which made Polly look up when she realised it. There was a smirk instead, and she couldn't quite decide whether that was the old Mal or... or the very old Mal.

"Mal?" she said, still working on the lock, but not looking or even concentrating now. "Mal, what'd they do?"

Too blunt, she thought, and for a moment she couldn't tell whether she meant herself or the scissors. The latter especially were quite inappropriate, which only fed into her frustration, and Mal was tense, but then again, Polly didn't really think that was a recent development.

The silence stretched for a longer time than what was usual or even polite.

"It's a bit of a game, really," said Mal finally. "Good warden, bad warden." Her smile was rather worryingly wide. "One hits you over the head, the other offers you a cup of coffee. One stomps on your hands, so the other holds the cup for you. One promises to take your handcuffs off soon, and the other -"

Her voice trailed off, and for a moment Mal seemed to fade while her gleaming smile stayed where it was, but Polly couldn't read that. "Mal," she said, and then didn't find a way to continue.

"One is a bastard, and the other is also a bastard," said Mal. "Funny, that. And then there's me, who's basically Genua, now with added colours."

Mal's fingers, Polly noticed, were rather swollen and bruised. Of course.

"They gave you coffee," she said, because she'd once read about the benefits of positive thinking. Then the lock clicked, she held her breath, was it open?, and Mal let her hand drop into her lap, quite limp. But surely she'd heal nicely, now?

"It was my own," said Mal. "It was the coffee I brought. I think I may have to kill them all."

It would have been idle talk up until now, what with them being locked up and constrained and everything, but now the thought of - Polly shut her eyes, briefly - of attacking _wardens_ with _scissors_ was becoming frighteningly concrete.

"Yes," she said. "But are you going to kill me?"

Careful, she thought. Can't have that smile fade, there'll be nothing left -

- but of course there was. There always was. For example, there was all this tension, there was Mal's wrist in Polly's hand, and the weight of the scissors in her other, and the everlasting silence. Polly wondered if they'd have words left, when this was all over.

"'m sorry," she murmured. It was as close to the truth as anything else she might have said.

There was more silence, then, and Polly set to work on freeing Mal's other hand. She was clumsier than before, and it took a lot longer for the lock to even catch. Something was stuck, she thought, and then it wasn't.


End file.
